One of my favorite Disney classics would have to be The Lion King. I love the characters, the songs, the visuals, and I love the messages and morals that the movie presents. I feel like there are many lessons to be learned from this iconic movie, some more deeply hidden than others. However, when I rewatched the movie last night, there was one particular message that stuck out to me.
The movie has plenty of fun songs in it, but among my favorites would have to be the song “Hakuna Matata”, sung by Timon and Pumbaa. They sing about having no worries, and living a life of ease. Throughout the song, they show Simba how stress-free their life is, with no troubles or anxieties. At first, Hakuna Matata seems pretty great.
I think a life without worries would be nice. It would be pleasant to wake up on mornings and not have to worry about the To-Do list. I would like to be able to forget about the math summer homework I have to finish, or the Black Belt Essay that I need to complete. It would be nice in the beginning.
The problem is, no one can live a life completely without worries, as everything in your life can have some amount of stress attached to it. Unless you lived entirely away from society, with no interaction with other living beings, you couldn’t achieve Timon and Pumbaa’s perfect Hakuna Matata.
Even though we can’t live a life with absolutely no problems, Timon and Pumbaa’s carefree attitude is something that we can learn from. I’m sure that their life wasn’t really problem free. There must have been times when there wasn’t much food to eat, or they couldn’t find a suitable place to sleep, or it was raining when they wanted sunshine. However, their attitude about the problem made it seem not so bad. They chose to just go with the flow, rather than worry about the things they couldn’t fix.
There was a quote I read online once by St. Francis that said: “Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” I liked this quote because I felt it goes directly hand in hand with Hakuna Matata. Now, Timon and Pumbaa chose to interpret “Hakuna Matata” to mean that they live a life without worrying about anything. I choose to think that “Hakuna Matata” means that there are going to be stressful things in life, but you don’t have to let those things worry you incessantly.
There is always going to be something else to worry about. Life definitely has no shortage of stressors. But you can choose to live a life of Hakuna Matata, maybe not one where you reject society in order to stay away from worries, but one where you accept the things you can’t change, change the things you can, and try your best to know the difference. See you next week!
“Reprinted from Hagel Publications, Inc. dba as Courier Newspapers”
Image from http://www.cornel1801.com/